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God is Always Working Lessons from John 5 Introduction: I want to start this talk out by telling you something… I really like Jesus! Not the kind of like like I like ice cream or knocking myself unconscious on a mountain bike, but the kind of like where you just really want to hang out with and be with someone. I really like hanging out with Jesus! And though many of you many think that Jesus in very spiritual ways, I want you to get practical in your relationship with Him. You see, the Almighty, All Holy, Totally Omnipotent and Omniscient God up in heaven, did something incredible, it’s written about by Paul in Philippians 2:6,7 Jesus… “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant…” God became one of us and walked amongst us, among the stupid, the immoral, the broken, the lost, the self-righteous, the self-dependent… us. Jesus is not some far off spiritual thought, but a real person, working right now in our lives, and unfortunately we are often so unaware of Him. We can sit in our churches, in our offices, in our families and not even notice Him. Oh Yeah, we get in touch with Him when we want to, when it fits our schedule, our mood, the situation… I hate to say this, and I can only say it because I find it so true in my life, but we are way to ignorant when it comes to the work of God in our lives. So today, let’s get shaken up, let’s get off our butts and get to living with Jesus! He is always working and He wants us to join Him! He wants us to LIVE! John 5 is a cool chapter in the book of John… the crowds are still following Jesus… he hasn’t said enough to scare them off yet, that all begins to happen in chapter 6… so here in verse one we see Jesus walking among us… Read 1-9a Pick up your mat! Jesus goes to Bethesda… and meets a man who had been a cripple for 38 years… sitting there watching and waiting for the water to stir, hoping he could catch everyone off guard and sneak into the pool when the water is stirred… watching, waiting, going no where! And you know, when it comes to our spiritual lives, that’s where we often find ourselves, watching and waiting, going no where… Well Jesus walks up to the man, and asks him what appears to be, on the face of it, a stupid question! “Do you want to get well?” But this isn’t a stupid question… it’s a question I think Jesus is always asking us in one way or another… Maybe it sounds like this… “Do you want real life, a life of eternal significance?” When you put it that way, it takes some thought. I mean I’ve got a good life right here, good friends to hang out with, sure it may smell like sick people, sure there’s death all around, but the conversation is good. Jesus is asking, “Are you ready to WALK THE WALK!” Well the man gives a normal excuse… and then Jesus says some very direct and simple words, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” And this guy does it! But like us so very often, the man doesn’t get all the implications of what just happened… He just walks away and goes on with life. Way to often when we meet Jesus, when we accept His grace and healing, we simply walk off and go and live our lives. JESUS WANTS US TO GET INVOLVED IN HIS WORK! Now we’ve got to be careful here, because it’s easy for us to try to take charge here… Read 9b-16 And don’t get Self-Righteous Now the focus shifts… We now see the people that think that getting close to God is all about them and what they do! About the rules and regulations… the setting of agendas and development of programs. The Pharisees! I remember going down to build a few wood shacks down in Tijuana with some guys from a church. These guys were real construction workers! They loaded up their trucks with all their tools and headed down to build four homes… when morning came they were ready to bang out some houses… Dave Burdette walked up and they asked him, “So where do we plug in our compressors?” Dave laughed and handed them a couple of buckets of tired and worn out handsaws and hammers. These guys thought that they could just plug in and put out… but God had different work in mind. We got to rip whole sheets of plywood with dull saws. You know how you could tell who went on the trip the next Sunday at church… all the guys were doing this (make sawing movement.) It’s sad that it’s the most “religious” people, the ones who say and think they have it all together are often the furthest from God. God walked among the losers, died for the losers, and wants us to be willing to do the same. The sad thing is that we human beings love to listen to just one person, ME. Humbling ourselves to the way of God is hard, even for those of us who have felt the hand of God. The man who had been healed walked away on healthy legs, but we don’t get much sense of his heart being changed. We need to examine ourselves and make sure that our righteousness isn’t of our own creation! If so, the only words Christ will have for us is “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” Recognize that self-righteousness only works as long as you are breathing, after that, it ain’t worth much. Examine yourself! God is always Working… 1) Let’s start by Recognizing that God is always at work! READ John 5:17… We must recognize that God is always at work! a) Tell about our church planting experience.
b) The daily stuff of life so often clouds our vision... it rises up in front of us... and we can't see the forest for the trees We take pride in our lives! We worry about it! It’s all about ME! i) Have you ever IGNORED God?We are way to ignorant when it comes to the work of God in our lives. There is power in realizing that God is always working around us and in us... always!!! Do you get discouraged about your work? About your life? ii) But when we simply take time to look at the world we see that God is Always working… c) And Jesus is always working in our lives, the power of the cross is incredible and can’t be ignored! Grace Flows Down! Jesus is always Working… 2) Jesus is always Working!!! Read 18-23 Think about Jesus... He and God are one!!! The book of John is full of evidence of that fact… Jesus is connected to God in every way! Connected in perfect relationship… that makes them ONE! a) In the book of Philippians 2 Paul wrote about Jesus... and us! 1 If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, i) CAN YOU BELEIVE THIS! We ARE UNITED WITH CHRIST! This SHOULD BE VERY ENCOURAGING TO US! But THAT ISN'T ALL... OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH CHRIST BRINGS US comfort, fellowship, tenderness, compassion, joy, like-mindedness, love, oneness in spirit and purpose… Listen! if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. ii) DOES THIS SOUND LIKE WHAT YOU'D LIKE TO BE? DOES THIS SOUND LIKE A GOOD LIFE? b) THERE IS INCREDIBLE POWER IN BEING UNITED WITH JESUS! i) IN LOOKING AT LIFE, REMEMBERING THAT GOD IS WORKING AND WANTS TO INVOLVE YOU! ii) AND THEN ACTUALLY DOING IT! Life is not a game for God… It shouldn’t be a game for us! God is ALWAYS Working! Jesus is ALWAYS Working!! And His work involves YOU! All the time!3) He works for eternal life! (24) "I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. a) Those words Eternal life in the middle of that verse are REALLY SPEAKING OF TRUE RICHNESS OF SPIRITUAL LIFE, NOT JUST A CONTINUATION OF THIS LIFE. IT SPEAKS OF i) LASTING JOY, LASTING BEAUTY, SURE TRUTH, FULL RELATIONSHIP... ii) YOU HAVE THIS AND MORE THE MOMENT YOU ENTER INTO YOUR RELATIONSHIP W/ JESUS! b) Is that hard to see?!? The life that God has for us to live is bigger than we could ever imagine or figure out. c) Sometimes God is hard to see. There are times in life when we can't get a good glimpse of God working in our lives... Sometimes it is like that with God... we know he is there but we can't always see how he is working! i) God is the God who is there… He is Here! He is always working… and his work is to give us life! ii) And He wants to use us! Try to figure that one out?!? But it makes sense when you realize that God is ALWAYS Working! Jesus is ALWAYS Working!! And His work involves YOU! All the time! You are involved in His Work! 4) So Come Alive to God! (25)) 25 I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. a) First, Jesus tells us the truth… Jesus is the truth! Our world says that your truth is your truth, mine is mine… Jesus says “I tell you the truth…” Truth is a person, Jesus. Truth emanates from God! b) Truth comes with a condition; you must listen and obey it! In verse 25 when he speaks to the dead and those who hear come to life, he is speaking of those who are spiritually dead. He wants to breathe life into us! i) That’s the big question… that’s the tension of life, listening to Christ and then coming to life in the kingdom of God! ii) This life comes from Christ, that’s the gift that Christ offers us… eternal life! God is ALWAYS Working! Jesus is ALWAYS Working!! And His work involves YOU! All the time! So what are you going to do? c) A.W. Tozier wrote this, “What we need very badly these days is a company of Christians who are prepared to trust God as completely now as they know they must do at the last day.[i]” d) Are you ready to recognize and begin to live out the reality that God is ALWAYS Working! And Jesus is ALWAYS Working!! And His work involves YOU! All the time! i) It’ll change the way you look at this world ii) It’ll change the way you look at work iii) It’ll change the way that you look at each person iv) It’ll change the way you look at you family v) It’ll change the way you look at yourself GOD HAS GREAT PLANS FOR YOU, COME ALIVE TO HIM AND BEGIN THE PROCESS OF LIVING IN ETERNALLY SIGNIFICANT WAYS!
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